It's A Chef's Life.

It took me a long time to work out just exactly what I wanted to be.

You could say I am a girl who has had a few careers.

It wasn’t until I turned 40 that I landed a job by accident working in a kitchen.

Perhaps the utter frustration of having worked in the welfare sector for so long made this new job seem perfect.

After all, if you follow a recipe you get results.

We’ll as I found out not always.

However, I took to it like a duck to water. I like precision, I like consistency. I also like to push the boundaries. I’m a Virgo so maybe cheffing is my perfect vocation.

Coming in to it all so late in life gave me pause to wonder what I had gotten myself into.

Long days stretching into even longer nights I was used to in my previous job.

What I wasn’t ready for was the absolutely personal nature of the insults, the put downs, the constant stress and pressure.

I’m not a girl who is ever going to be treated like a doormat just because someone has a piece of paper that says chef and an attitude that would topple the Empire state building.

And I am happy to stand my ground.

As the rookie in the kitchen I found that it was presumed I would be all yes chef, no chef, three bags full chef and for a while I was.

I switched kitchens half way through my first year and found myself working in a small town pub with a chef whose attitude left much to be desired.

It was the local watering hole and the food was there only as a side to soak up the alcohol.

The owner of the bar was a fan of pseudo Chinese meals and they were run of mill to say the least. Think the least interesting Australian take on a Chinese meal and add in some sesame seeds and bobs your uncle.

The head chef suffered from what I like to call limp dick syndrome. Never happy, always demanding even though he was no Ramsey, Oliver or Pierre – White and never would be.

Booze soaked and with a definite female hating attitude I found that life under him was always going to be a test of my patience.

Abuse was a daily part of my life working in this place. Not always directed at me because I think eventually I would have snapped and thrown something at him, but it wasn’t unusual to find that Chef was having bad day and throwing stock or equipment around, or calling the girl downstairs a slut, a mole, a useless piece of shit.

And if the downstairs bar staff happened to talk back he would at times race down a narrow switchback flight of stairs and take issue with them on the bar floor in front of customers who were all quite used to the prick in the apron.

We always hoped that one day he would lose his footing and take a tumble that would keep him away from the kitchen for weeks at least. Never happened.

In theory you should be able to report that sort of abusive behaviour to the manner or the owner but to make a complaint would see you branded as a whinging female, not thick skinned enough to take the normal environment of the kitchen.

It took me a while to learn that behaviour such as I was exposed to is never okay. Nobody should be allowed to speak to you in a manner that is designed to make you feel like a cockroach.

On those precious days off Chef had every week we all breathed easier. Work was fun on those days no matter how slammed we got.

Eventually the showdown came and rather than bow to yet another epic chef tantrum I resigned from the job I loathed and went back to the original kitchen I started in.

Better seasoned and able to cope with the demands of diva’s with dietary requirements I’ve been at it now for four years.